


Kamagasaki

by xpityx



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22799638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: Faith couldn’t have said what she was doing in Osaka. What she was doing in Japan, even. The language was beyond her but the vampires were the same as they were anywhere: a hard fight and then swirling dust.
Relationships: Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	Kamagasaki

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely [walkwithursus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkwithursus/pseuds/walkwithursus) for the beta.

Faith couldn’t have said what she was doing in Osaka. What she was doing in Japan, even. The language was beyond her but the vampires were the same as they were anywhere: a hard fight and then swirling dust. 

The area she was in was poor: men slept on pallets in the hot, narrow streets, and the smell of unwashed bodies was heavy in the dark. It was her second vampire of the night and this one had managed to slam her into a bench before she’d dusted it. She was getting old and slow, she thought with no little humour, wiping away the blood and sweat that dripped into her eyes. It was only a shallow wound, but it stung in a way it wouldn’t have fifteen years ago. 

She was eyeing the nearest vending machine, trying to work out if it sold anything other than dirt cheap beer when she sensed someone behind and spun, stake raised to strike. It was only an old man though, hunched over and grey with age. 

“ _Fuck, jesus_ ,” she swore, memories from decades ago pulling her into another alleyway, into the feeling of blood beneath her nails.

The old man said something and put his hands up in the universal sign for surrender. 

“Sorry, man. I’ve got no Japanese except _sumimasen_ , and _beeru onagaishimasu_ ,” she said, tucking her stake into her back pocket.

He looked her up and down then grinned, revealing one, singular tooth and whole lot of gums. Faith smiled back, despite herself. It was 1am in a city where no-one knew her, but this guy, who she’d come half a second from gutting, was smiling at her. She’d learnt to let the good things happen without waiting for the bad, and at that moment she was fiercely glad of it.

He moved his hands in a gesture that meant _go away_ in America, but weirdly meant _come here_ in this distant country, so she shrugged and followed him. They walked down one alley and up another, the man keeping up a decent pace though he limped in a way that looked life-long.

The houses were crowded so closely that she could reach out and touch two and a time. There were washing machines outside some of them, streaked with dirt, and a surprising number had flower pots with plants wilting in the summer heat: even in the middle of the night the humidity was stifling. They made their way under a quiet overpass and out into another, equally narrow street, where he pushed open a door into an untidy three floor building. Another door, then they were in a small hallway. Faith could hear, smell, and feel the crush of people in that room, sleeping head to toe in narrow bunks. The man indicated a sliding door, and she found herself in a brightly lit bathroom. He handed her a threadbare towel and a bar of soap, then pulled the door shut behind her. She looked around, a little nonplussed, then caught sight of herself in the mirror. She would have been arrested for sure walking around with so much blood on her face, and cops in Japan did not fuck around. 

She washed her face, pushing back strands of her hair that had come loose and stuck to her neck with sweat. She dabbed at the cut on her forehead with some thin toilet roll, but it had mostly stopped bleeding. Drying off her face, she quietly opened the door, mindful of the sleeping people on its other side. The old man was waiting for her and he took the now-damp towel from her, placing it into a basket by his feet. He walked her to the front door, but stopped at the entrance. Faith turned to him, at a loss for a moment. She was better than she used to be, but she still didn’t do much human interaction. 

She hesitated a moment more then, feeling foolish, she bowed: her hands in front of her as she’d seen other women do. The old man grinned at her again, then mirrored her gesture—with far more grace than his laboured walk would have suggested.

Faith took two steps backwards then turned, walking off into the night. 

In front of Dobustuenmai station there was an open air cafe, of sorts: a cluster of eight or so tables surrounded by mismatched chairs under a rusting roof. A frowning man in a streaked apron put skewers of meat onto an ancient grill, black with burnt soy sauce and grease, and the same sauce hung off the ceiling lamps in solid, black stalactites. 

As far as Faith could tell, food health and safety standards were less of a thing in Japan than they were in the US. 

She pointed at a few likely looking skewers and nodded when the guy pointed to the vat of sauce and raised his eyebrows in question. The sauce he used was like black tar and she reckoned she might steal a little to use instead of stitches next time she got a more serious injury. She also asked for a beer, using two out of the three words of Japanese she knew. 

There was no-one else there at this time of night, and she sat in the corner under bright lights and ate the hot meat and fish she’d ordered. Typically, she was trying to remove the sauce from her hands with a soggy napkin when Buffy sat down opposite her. 

“Hey, B,” Faith said, dropping the napkin on the table and trying for nonchalance.

“Hey,” Buffy replied, studying her with that cool, assessing gaze that had always made Faith feel like she’d never measure up. “You look good,” she finally decided, and Faith fought down the tiny part of herself that swelled under her praise. She shrugged. 

“You too. I’m digging the hair.”

Buffy’s blonde hair and been cut into a sharp bob that showed off her narrow face. She looked pared down, like she’d been stripped to nothing but the bare essentials. Some long-dormant caring instinct reared up in Faith and she wondered if she should offer to buy her some food. 

“How’d you find me?” Faith asked after a pause.

Buffy shrugged, mirroring Faith’s earlier gesture.

“Heard you were in Japan, heard there were a lot of vampires in Osaka, then went to the place everyone told me was dangerous to go to,” she said, as she stole a piece of chicken off Faith’s plate. She considered it for a moment before putting it back.

“ _Why_ did you find me?”

Buffy fiddled with the plastic that covered the table, picking at a small hole that revealed the cheap wood underneath.

“I just… I don’t know. Everyone has built these lives for themselves and I—”

“Still skulk around in alleyways by yourself at night?” Faith put in when she hesitated.

“Yeah,” Buffy replied with a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth, “pretty much.”

“Well, I’ve got skulking room to share if you want to hang around for a bit,” Faith offered, then could have kicked herself. She’d spent a lifetime making room for Buffy, only to fall short of whatever standards Buffy held others to and be left behind every time.

To her surprise Buffy hummed her agreement, though she didn’t look up from the strip of plastic she’d begun to pull away from the tabletop.

Faith watched her for a moment. She was still beautiful, of course. Maybe more so, with her crows feet and the deep lines that hooked from her nose to around her mouth. She looked like she’d done a lot more smiling than she had when they were young.

“Hey, have you been to a public bath yet?” Faith asked, thinking out loud more than anything. She winced internally as Buffy’s eyebrows rose judgmentally.

“The naked ones?”

“No, B, it’s a fully clothed bathhouse.”

“Aren’t tattoos banned?” she asked, with a pointed look at the stark blackwork that wound it’s way from under Faith’s t-shirt.

“Nah. I mean, yeah, mostly they are, but there’s one close to here that I think is on local-mafia territory, so they don’t care.”

“You’re not selling this.”

“Come on,” Faith said, standing, “I bet the 7/11 sells bath sets and towels.” 

They did: tiny travel duos of shampoo and conditioner and 900 yen towels. She picked up two lots of each, then went to grab Buffy who’d been ensnared by the desserts the second they’d walked in. She was currently studying a goopy thing that had a disturbing layer of tan fluff on top. Faith just stood next to her and looked at her until she put it back in the fridge. 

“We are coming back here and I’m going to try all the green ones,” Buffy declared, more upbeat than Faith remembered her being in a long time. 

“Sure,” Faith agreed easily, wondering if they’d fallen into some alternative universe where she was the sensible one. 

They got by on smiles and gestures at the bathhouse, and the woman in the tiny reception booth seemed to recognise Faith from the night before last.

The whole place looked like it had fallen out of the 1950s, complete with a massage chair that even Faith hadn’t been brave enough to try. Buffy lit up when she saw it though, and Faith resigned herself to feeding the thing 100 yen coins after they’d gotten out of the bath.

The baths themselves were deserted and, after they’d washed, they settled into the outside bath. Buffy had to go inside to immerse herself in the cold bath every ten minutes or so, but Faith liked the heat, liked the smell of the minerals in the water and the black night sky above her. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she got back to the States. Maybe rob a bank so she could buy herself somewhere with a yard and a hot tub. 

“Hey, did you ever get rich?” she asked, when Buffy appeared again, nipples peaked from her cold dip.

“Nope,” Buffy replied, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously as she lowered herself into the hot water. She was completely unabashed about her nudity in a way that surprised Faith. “How come?” she added.

“Just thinking, I could get used to this. Not sure I can afford a place with a hot tub or anything though.”

“We could just stay here,” Buffy replied. 

“In the bath?” Faith asked, stupid with surprise, and Buffy laughed.

“No, I mean, in Japan. I thought that once, maybe you’d wanted…” 

It was completely surreal: sat naked in a Japanese hot tub with Buffy offering… something—she wasn’t even sure what—but Buffy offering her anything seemed a miracle in and of itself. 

“Yeah, let’s stay.” Faith swallowed, then made herself speak past her doubt, “I want you to. Here, with me.”

Buffy finally looked up at her. She was smiling, the lines of her face deep with age and her hair flecked with grey, and she was beautiful and here and she wanted to stay. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> On [Tumblr](https://xpityx.tumblr.com/) for fandom and anarchy, [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xpityxfanfic) for writing updates.


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